GOOD NEWS EVERYONE
So after discussing this with both Etalus and my brother, I have decided that I am going to shoot very high for
COT5 Plans. I talked to Chibo and he gave some ideas for ways to throw the tournament and I think they are really good. Here let me quote you his idea for a setup:
vVv ChiboSempai said:
There's no need to make a specific schedule, people won't stick to it. Just have it set up, some people will naturally be interested in it to try it out and spread the word, then ask some pros while there if they wouldn't mind trying it.
I have a great idea on how to do a tournament for it. Say tournament for it starts at whatever time, then at that time people come over and line up. First two people to a set up play a match/set. Write down their names so you know they entered. If they lose, they are out, if they win, mark down that they did. Do this until interest drops, and try to get as many people as you can. You can have a ton of people in this, and this reduces the size by 50%, like 100 entrants to 50. It might also be smart to put like a 128 person cap on the entire tournament, first come first serve. Do 1 or 2 more rounds of these, and for each one randomly call up two people that won round 1 matches. Same procedure as before, if they lose they're out, if they win they go on. Do this until you're under 32 or 16 people, however big you want the bracket to be. Then make a single or double (prob single) elimination bracket of all the remaining people (there will be some byes if you didn't start with 64 or 128 people, who cares though. Play out the bracket. If it's a 16p bracket you can do double elim, if it's 32p you should prob do single.
It's how Pokemon tournaments are ran and they complete 768 person tournaments in this fashion in like 5-6 hours. They do have A LOT of setups though. Just run yours casually throughout the 2 days. I would try to get all the elimination rounds out of the way on day 1 and then bracket on day 2.
I agree with Chibo that this seems like the best idea. Now I am not sure of the room yet, but I was thinking of doing 3 laptops / one pc partitioned with 3 OSes and 3 Monitors. And then I have the option to use either wii-motes (if the laptops / pc can recieve bluetooth) or USB Gamepads, which I can get from Logitech for only 10 dollars each.
Now the Big plan with the tournament, that I haven't actually discussed with Chibo yet, is that I think I might make this a sort of "release party" for Smash Land. That means, I will probably make up some swag that can only be obtained at this event. I was thinking of making 6 unique CoT5 posters each featuring a single character and the date of the tournament. I have some other ideas for some unique goodies. These could be given to the winners of the tournament. I would probably put the winner on my site as the champion of the first Smash Land tournament. I was also thinking of printing out a nice jewel case and selling inversephase's soundtrack along with the game. Either for a donation or a low price. That also means that the game must be completed (or 99% done) by June 24-26th. If i can do that, then the release will definitely be tied to this tournament.
Now what does this mean for development? It means that I need to pick up the pace quite a bit. I sit now with the 6th and final character mostly sprited and coding beginning, but I still have 3 stages, endless mode and versus options to tackle. I also have a lot of balance to work on if I want the game to succeed at a tournament.
Another large feature that my brother and I discussed that I am thinking would greatly benefit the tournament setting is the ability to save replays similar to brawl. After the game, it would ask you if you want to save the information and then print out a text file with the information and all the inputs with timecodes that the game can read back and play the match back exactly. The biggest problem is that this feature would require a lot of work, and even then, I'm not sure if it would work 100%. I would love to do it, but the idea of having both this and the game done for June on top of my school projects seems doubtful.
So yeah, hopefully in a few days, I will be making a topic in Tournament Discussion that should enlighten members about the game and give them a chance to practice haha. I wanna clear up everything in my head first.
I am getting close to being able to share a teaser with you, but I think I will finish the 6th character and then tackle that last non-locked stage.
@Supreme Dirt
I never played Link's Awakening so if you could show me some screens to share your ideas that would be nice =P. As for P2P online. That is not in the plans for the original release, but depending on if i get a job for the summer / if the game is popular, then it is something I may pursue.
-4nace
I could imagine seeing it as an event at the next Melee/Brawl tournament. Would help with the balance as well, and it already feels like a game that could generate a lot of hype in the matches.
